Page 92 of Not Like The Other Girls

“Then sucks for you,” her sweet-but-self-obsessed man teases with a chuckle.

“You think I should just quit? Nah, actually, I’m not gonna do that—there’s only like a year and a half left if I’ve computed it right. But then again, as my microeconomics score shows, my calculations are often faulty.”

Lily, Lily, always rambling.

Then she happens to look down at the cover of the book he put down. Self Help: Be A Better Billionaire, it says. Of course he’d read that kinda shit. “What does it tell you to do?” She asks, nudging her shoulder at it.

“It says I’m supposed to capitalize capitalism in order to capture more capital, whatever that means. Actually, I’ve skipped most of the book, and frankly, I don’t understand a single thing. It’s almost as bad as the Harvard textbooks Papa got me.”

Of course he doesn’t understand.

Lily shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up with him being a bookworm.



The drive to the community college to renew her semester documents was quick, since the familiar place is just a couple of miles from the town’s main street. Especially on a holiday like this, when most are either nursing a painful hangover or munching leftover turkey with their families, the roads are practically theirs.

Wait, this isn’t Thanksgiving.

The application forms and payments went in a blur of monotone voices of the college’s staff who are somehow still working even on a holiday. And after floating in a bored haze for a while, Lily Lindon London finds herself back in Every’s Bentley.

“Next stop is the coffee shop.” He informs her as she looks out of the window, her face blank.

Her blank face moves a little, showing the faintest hint of surprise as he rounds the corner and parks in front of the Darkindeep Ebonyngrey Wolfmane Ridge-Cliff Cafe. “Man, why’d we come here? Don’t you have some premium coffee place you frequent?”

He adjusts his tie, palming it neatly into place. “With the size of our town, I don’t really have that many options, babe. And this is where we met in the first place. If I had not come here, who knows where you’d be by now.”

“Still doing laundry for my sissy.”

“That’s right.”

They entwine their hands as they walk to the place, with its rough walls and fading paint.

“Hello, and welcome to the Darkindeep Ebonyngrey Wolfmane Ridge-Cliff Cafe,” she automatically says as they walk through the creaky-assed door, the phrase indented into her head after repeating it over and over again for the duration of her career as a barista.

But she’s not one anymore, probably fired and forgotten since the first day that she missed her shift.

And sure enough, a young intern with short curly hair stands behind the kiosk.



Lily nurses her coffee slowly, like some middle-aged man who suddenly became obsessed with the idea of slow life. She is neither of those, actually.

“Love you,” she says to Every, entwining her hands with him yet again. She floats in a dreamy haze of comfort and adoration, feeling not unlike the times she ate a little too much pot brownies at Queeny’s,

She sure is a mushy mush of a mushroom now.

Changed forever by her baby.

But Every is even more of a mush than she is: he pulls her from her seat beside him, up his lap like a light rag-doll that weighs next to nothing. It is a corny move alright, which grabs the attention of other customers for a couple of seconds, before they remember the existence of their phones and go back scrolling.

He gives her a smooch on her lightly powdered cheek.

Then pinches it softly.

And Lily can’t give a single fuck about their surroundings, since she’s young and in love and it is her right to cuddle up her man in public.

How wholesome.